silkworm

None of it's hard. If you can spell your own name and tie your shows you can kill anything like this. You just have to realize that although none of this is difficult, there seems to be a desire by most professor's and textbooks to make it all seem as complicated as possible. I guess it's job security. Just break it down and simplify everything as much as you can.

I know my opinion means pretty close to nothing but I'd reorganize this a bit from fundamental to less fundamental. Top of the page Physics (and Astronomy) and Mathematics (even though Math is a language). Followed by Chemistry, Biochemistry. Then Biology and Medical, Ecology. Then Geology, climatology. Then to engineering, technology, and computer science. That list up top looks a bit random. I also feel that less division into further subgroups is better than more division, just as a general rule.

There is literally nothing at the end of the universe. If you think you're close to the end of the universe and turn around and can see light you're still nowhere near it. Space ends beyond the reach of all energy. But it's by no means a permanent end, in fact it's barely temporary and easily turns from nothing to space by the invasion of just the smallest little bit of energy. As an example, you know you've reached nothingness when the temperature is absolute zero. However, just be measuring the temperature you create space that will "never" nothingness again because in order for it to no longer be space it must achieve absolute zero by traveling through an infinite number of negative magnitudes. If the popular thought is wrong and the speed of light is not the physical limitation for speed in the universe, the real limitation of the speed at which energy must travel in order to violate nothingness before nothingness becomes space would be it, which would result in something like hitting an infinitely strong brick wall (even though this energy would create new space after the "accident").

Ecoli, Did you hear that there has been such a solar boom in California that panels are backordered for 6 months? It's just something I heard and I was hoping it was true.

I know. I was shocked to see that when I first came here. I was like, where is chemistry? I didn't even see it at first and I was pretty bumbed out until it finally caught my eye. I don't really see the need to split up chemistry into more than just chemistry. I feel that pretending there is a difference between organic and inorganic chemistry does more harm than good. A seperate section for analytical makes sense though, but not very much. Physical chemistry is physics, right? I propose that we simply put chemistry on its own at the top of the page with some sort of effect to make it appear as it was sent from heaven followed by a division that says "Physics, math, and the lower sciences." I also move that English not be allowed to be used in the Philosophy and Religion section and I don't understand why the top of my page says "Science Forums and Debate." Debate? Why?

We're not that desperate for solar energy that we need to go and get it. There's more than enough sun that hits the surface of the Earth to supply our energy needs. We just need more effecient and durable panels and better batteries.

Gib65, There have been some pretty interesting shows on this recently on the Discovery Science Channel. I can't think of any of the names, but if you have the channel keep an eye out and I'm sure they'll come around.

The problem with SUVs is the "bang for your buck." Very few people need SUVs. SUV owners burn more gas to get to A to B than someone who drives a more effecient vehicle for their needs. The same thing can be said for people who leave their lights on, or the TV on all night, or waste energy in other ways. Most energy you use comes from fossil fuels and when you burn more fossil fuel than what is needed, this causes more pollution than what is needed, and raises the price to just live for everybody, which really hurts when you're one of the working poor (and causes a very unhealthy domino effect I don't want to get into here). Of course, the supply and demand system of gasoline is very flawed right now as is evident by the windfall profits of the oil industry over the past quarter. Airplane fuel emmissions are less vulgar because they're generally transporting more than a soccer mom out to window shop. They still generally use fossil fuels, right? Rockets are a different story. Buses, which do not get good gas mileage, are also less vulgar because every bus on the road takes 40 cars off. Also, there's something like if every household in America would change a incadescent light bulb they use to a compact flourescent (which are better bulbs anyway, just a bit more expensive) it's the same as taking 1 million cars off of the road. As for CO2, that's a greenhouse gas than can easily be put under control if we made the Earth look more like a greenhouse instead of the floor of a garage. If you drive an SUV, plant a tree (or plant a lot of trees), and you're okay in my book in terms of pollution although you could do better. But you're still screwing everyone else econimically if you don't need one, which would be meaningless if we weren't talking about energy.

Glider: A safety thing too. If you can actually smell a horrible smell that came from you, it's not going to seem as dangerous as something that smells horrible from an unknown source. I've heard people say something to the effect that they fear getting sick from a bad smelling person.

This doesn't accurately represent the majority of Kansans, and I'd also like to mention that scientific illiteracy is not exclusive to the midwest. As opposed to the federal government I suppose. At least they claim to be funding NASA. This probably got through due to lobbying. I don't think very many of these people (politicians, boardmembers) actually believe in what they're doing, just that some wealthy people feel mortal or guilty or both and have money. All ID supporters will get sent home at reelection. We're not happy about this and the guy they chose to be their leader.

It's stupid to negotiate with terrorists because it makes them feel they have more power than random mass murder. Then you'll just have more of the same, only much more. In short, consistently ignoring terrorists who want to negotiate saves more innocent lives (bystander hostages) than the other route.

There's actually someone who studies this. They did a story on him on Discoveries this Week on the Discovery Science Channel in the summer of 2003 I think. My general chemistry teacher played it to my class (this is college) and said, "You see, science can be fun." This woman constantly screwed up Lewis dot structures, did not understand significant figures, and had a lot of difficultly calculating moles, so maybe you can understand the level of my teacher. Anyway, from what I remember he found that an average person farts 11 times a day with what is of course variable composition. I think he said that it's mainly sulfur compounds though. But it of course depends on your diet.

I'm wondering what the bank accounts of all of these players involved on the ID side look like about now. I'm also curious about the bank accounts of the ID supporters of the school board members here in Kansas. I've been monitoring this thing for awhile, especially when it started threatening the future of the children in my state. The movement doesn't stop at ID. I get this free religious magazine that gets most of its material criticizing science. Its last issue is a series of stories about how all of these big natural disasters recently are because we have ignored God and now the end is near. They misrepresent scientific terminology constantly. The evolution issue was especially appauling because they edited what exactly happened to Galileo, who was essentially killed by this same crowd. I'm not going to mention the publication by name because that would just be advertising for it. But my point here is, this stuff has big money and is pervading other areas than just science classrooms. The local paper is another example, The Wichita Eagle. Do you guys ever read the opinion lines in your papers? Everytime I look there's an attack on evolution. Two recent memorable ones are on Thanksgiving Day a woman wrote in to say something to the effect that it's interesting that we have been finding all of these mammoths recently (which is true, locally we have been finding a bunch) that we haven't found any "monkeys." And she went on to say something like it's interesting they haven't been digging up any "monkeys" anywhere and used that to say that (human) evolution has no evidence. I think most of us can tell exactly how much work this lady has done thinking about this. There was one on Sunday that was also interesting, and I still have it so I will quote it here: John Brown, which is a name that's easy to rally around here in Kansas, is obviously referring to the King James version of the bible. A few weeks ago Steve Abrams, the chair of the state school board, defended the board's decision in an editorial that gets Unabomber style paranoid. He starts by saying the decision hasn't redefined science and that ID is not mentioned in any of the new standards. Then he says that "evolutionists" don't want students to know about scientific criticisms of evolution and then he criticizes scientists for boycotting the mock trial on evolution in Topeka earlier this year. In Abrams classic final paragraph, he criticizes superintendents who have gone on record to say that the school board's decision means little to nothing on how they will run their respective schools and that and I quote, "But I guess we shouldn't be surprised, because superintendents and local school boards in some districts continue to promulgate pornography as "literature," even though many parents have petitioned the local boards to remove the porn." He doesn't specifically say what this porn is, but he goes on to say that evil superintendents don't allow parental control over their child's education in their districts. You can see where he's coming from, but I also bet he jingles a bit more when he walks. Especially when you see who the board hired to head the state's education department. Somehow the phrase, "Everyone has a right to an opinion" has grown into a monster. Everyone who earns the right to an opinion does have the right to an opinion but those just talking, like the "monkey" lady, just run their mouths but still have a very real affect on others like her and it's unfortunate that an effort wasn't made to keep this woman, and many others like her, out of the paper. I feel sorry for this woman when she finds out how silly her argument is. We, as (although somewhat unneccessary) supporters, don't help this situation much either. We're going too heavy when defending evolution. When the man on the street attacks you for being godless just take it easy on him, don't get anywhere near RNA in your explaination. I keep things simple, and here in Kansas I have converted many ID supporters into evolution supporters in casual conversations. They just didn't know, and they'd never looked. I stay away from RNA, I stay away from the origin of life, and I stay away from human evolution. I use a few everyday examples like antibiotic resistance using shapes and a piece of paper. I follow with a few simple statements about variation, how ever present it is and how different they are from their siblings and their parents. How this variation and mutation can branch individuals from populations, and as the individuals reproduce they grow their own populations, until the populations split and eventually speciation occurs. The language used in the media that overdramatizes evolution as series of choices and also is a hurdle to deal with, so I also explain that evolution is a relatively mindless process with very few choices involved. This is where they're at. I've had this conversation many times and I feel that I've only failed once, but she was from California and incredibly dense so she doesn't count. Kids need those concepts in high school. Evolution as a concept in and of itself is a very very powerful concept. When I explain this to a nonreligious person who doesn't struggle against some imaginary meaning their eyes light up. It's powerful. And it needs to be in high school. This attitude towards science is a major reason why I didn't even know what science was for until I was 22. I feel robbed, and I know many others here didn't know what science is for either. And that's not exclusive to Kansans. I've read the transcript. I read the transcript in the mock trial here. I don't know if many of you have heard but everyone of the ID supporters admitted to not having read anything in the Kansas trial. This little bit of blah blah blah does have a truth to it, and shows a problem that I'm tired of hearing about. We should solve it. We need to clear up this "theory" word problem. And let's make it account for what Dr. Behe is talking about here. Like the Evolution Validity (for accepted theories) the Astrology InValidity (for formerly accepted theories but are no longer) the ID NonValidity (for theories that cannot be tested). That's just an example to illustate the idea. Progress is more important than tradition. Note: I don't mean to imply that ID has popular support here in Kansas. As soon as it's election time it will be Dover all over again.

I witnessed this about a month ago and it is pretty neat. Just stay cool if it doesn't go right away and proceed with caution. If you've never witnessed liquid bromine too, it's truly something to behold. It's nasty stuff reminiscent of chlorosulfonic acid which is the nastiest stuff I've ever worked with. Be careful with it. Can't you just store the bromine in a capped "potion" bottle? (If that makes sense) That's how we keep it in our lab and it works pretty well. You just want to keep it cool to keep the lid on.

jdurg: "That's why I stated "any stable chemical compounds that you're likely to find". Besides, those Xenon and Krypton compounds aren't exactly 'stable' since they tend to react with everything in existance." That depends on your definition of stable. What I use and the way I generally hear it used is that stable refers to the ability for the compound to stay together on its own, reactivity refers to these Xe and Kr fluorides. Highly reactive. "With the ozone, I wouldn't worry about it. Ozone is INCREDIBLY reactive and will decompose rapidly into oxygen gas as you concentrate the air. (I.E. liquify it)." Sweet. Do you know of anywhere I can find a phase diagram for this stuff? By the way, here is my list for the gases below the Karman Line (100km). Cpd: BP (ºC): % Abundance: H20 100 Variable NO2 + 21.2 Trace-> 2.0x10-6 SO2 - 10.6 Trace-> 1.0x10-5 NH3 - 33.3 Trace-> 3.0x10-7 CO2 - 78.4 (sublime) 3.50x10-2 N2O -88.6 3.1x10-5 Xe - 108.0 8.7x10-6 O3 - 111.9 Trace-> 8.0x10-4 Kr - 153.2 1.14x10-4 CH4 - 161.4 1.7x10-4 O2 - 182.95 2.0947x101 Ar - 185.8 9.34x10-1 CO - 191.5 Trace-> 2.5x10-5 N2 - 195.8 7.8084x101 Ne - 246.1 1.818x10-3 H2 -253 5.3x10-5 He - 268.9 5.24x10-4 I have about 20ºC of space before I hit Xenon then about 8ºC before I have to worry about methane, and that's workable. I have to look at a phase diagram, but I'm worried I'll have to physically remove the CO2 and isolate it from the rest of the bath to keep it from mixing with the Xe and Kr when I distill them. It's been my experience that it doesn't take much pressure at all to keep dry ice from sublimating, so that may be a problem. Gracisimo.

This is set up as (Atomic Mass/Atomic Number)Species. (3/1)H is titrium. I'm sorry I don't understand the link about writing these characters here. Titrium occurs naturally in the upper atmosphere by this reaction and reached its highest concentration when we tested a lot of nukes, but it was still very small (5 in 10,000,000,000,000,000). (14/7)N + (1/0)n -> (12/6)C + (3/1)H The neutrons are supplied by cosmic rays and it makes its way to the earth in precipitation, normally in molecules like HOT, (HOH is water, T is titrium). It is made in nuclear reactors by this reaction, (6/3)Li + (1/0)n -> (3/1)H + (4/2)He. Most of this information comes from Descriptive Inorganic, Coordination, and Solid-State Chemistry by Glen E. Rodgers. It's a fabulous little book that I reccomend for everyone interested in chemistry. It's a good read. This is the way I see it. You're in a race against time if you're trying to get your own titrium, which has a half life of 12.3 years. I'd go the route of the deuterium farmer, only I'd get rid of the deuterium too, but that would only get you HOT and TOT as well. I'd use further electrolosys on the isolotated HOT and TOT to try to isolate the T. I'm pretty sure it would seperate, however I'm not sure how it would seperate, but I do know it would be lower on the electrode than the DOD and the HOD. Anyway, that's the way I would go.

Sorry, I need to learn how to work quotes on this thing. Jdurg: " Heh. You'll pretty much ONLY find Xenon in an elemental form as it doesn't form any stable chemical compounds that you're likely to find." Although I agree that what I said came across as dumb because of its redundancy, but I'd like to refer you to the work Dr. Neil Bartlett who I now understand is at Berkely. He created a few Xe fluorides while at the University of British Columbia. Since then some Xe oxides have also been made and there are some Kr fluorides and perhaps a (very) few others. I don't think any of these have been found in nature though and I doubt any are for sale. About the boiling points, thanks for looking out. I did a little searching myself and was happy to find that the only compound of substantial relative abundance in the atmosphere in between the boiling points of Xe and Kr is ozone. Since purity is an issue, this is a little more of a hassle in engineering, but it's workable. Do you, or anyone else out there, happen to know any good places on the net to find phase diagrams? I find these immensely useful, especially in this case, but I can't find any outside of a few compounds in textbooks. Thanks for the information Ryan J.

I'm sorry that I did not see this post earlier because this is probably a more appropriate place to post this link. Here, you can see visual updates of Mt. Saint Helens from the perspective of the Johnston Ridge Obervatory. It's refreshed every five minutes and provided more vivid pictures of the dust coming out of the crater than I can get with my binoculars from Kansas. http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

jdurg: "You need to liquify a LARGE amount of air to get any type of visible amount of Xe or Kr. Once everything is liquified, you would have to remove all of the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and argon from the air. It is simply not possible to do this in one's own home as the sheer size of the equipment you would need to do this is bigger than most people's homes." I was worried about this, but I think I can solve it by engineering something of relatively small volume that can suck up air and allow me to rerelease the stuff I don't want while keeping the stuff I do. I call it, "the ultimate cooler." My only problem there, from a chemistry persective, is overlapping boiling points. Do you have any suggestions on where the best place would be to find xenon and krypton? I mean, radon (which I don't want to use for obvious reasons) has notoriety for collecting in basements. Anything like that? I've been looking for information on this but I'm pretty much internet illiterate anymore and I'm on dialup. insane_alien: "you could always buy a canister of xenon and freeze it." Where's the fun in that? Actually I had no idea it would be commercially available in elemental form. I'm bumping around looking for some now. Hopefully it's not too expensive because I'm basically a fringe homeless science student. "(i assume you have the equipment and know-how to achieve these cold temps)" Nope, but my personal hero is a physics teacher at WSU that does superconductor research with liquid Helium. He built all of his equipment from spare parts around the university and a few hundred bucks in the 70s. I have the concepts down, so hopefully I can engineer something myself. Thank you to you both for your input.

I did a search and nothing came up on Mt. Saint Helens, so I hope that this hasn't been posted before. Here is a nice little website that gives visual updates of Mt. Saint Helens every 5 minutes. It appears to be provided by the US forestry service. If you look right now there is dust coming out of the crater due to recent rockfalls. Enjoy. http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

Wow, first of all I'd just like to say I'm impressed with the population of this website, it looks very solid. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how a poor Kansas boy who lives in his parents basement could isolate some Xenon or Krypton to work with over the holiday break? I guess fractional distillation of air is the only method that can get this, but if that's the method to use are there any suggestions about trapping the air? As to why, I'm interested in experiencing them in solid form. I know that with my limited resources it would be difficult to reach down to 116K with high pressure, but, hopefully, I can figure it out as soon as I get the "stuff." I just can't imagine what these would be like as solids, but their melting points are listed so I thought I'd check it out. Thank you.